The HTC Thunderbolt will be Verizon first LTE phone. That makes it one of the most compelling smart phones of the spring. (Source: HTC/Verizon)

The new handset launches March 17 on Verizon

The wait for a true Verizon 4G phone is almost over. Verizon Wireless,
America's largest carrier, is set to become only America's second carrier to
offer a phone that supports true fourth generation wireless technology,
following in Sprint's pioneering footsteps (T-Mobile and AT&T advertise
HSPA+ as "4G", but it's roughly half as fast in its current form asdeployed
LTEand WiMAX from Verizon and Sprint, respectively).

If you were hoping for Android "Gingerbread"
2.3, you won’t find it with this release. The phone only comes with
Android "Froyo" 2.2 (though a Gingerbread update will likely be in
the works before long).

The new phone's resemblance to theHTC
EVO 4G on Sprintin features and looks is somewhat uncanny. Like
the HTC EVO 4G on Sprint, it has a kickstand, for watching movies when you're
seated. It comes packed with 8 GB of internal flash and a 32 GB microSD
card.

Verizon will be offering customers LTE data for
the same rate as 3G -- $29.99 USD for unlimited use (Sprint bumps its 4G data
rate by $10). If you want a hotspot, that will be an extra $20/month.
The hotspot will be capped at 2 GB per month (unlike Sprint's which is currently
unlimited) and will support up to eight devices.

Compared to other Verizon offerings like therecently
acquired iPhone 4, the Thunderbolt looks competitive from a hardware
perspective. While it lacks a dual-core CPU like the upcomingMotorola
Atrix "4G" on AT&T (which can only muster HSPA+, not
true 4G), ultimately it should have more than enough power and the single-core
processor will arguably bemorebeneficial
in terms of prolonging battery life -- a trouble spot for HTC in the past.

And at the end of the day, having LTE is what
really sets this phone apart. The EVO 4G andEpic
4G on Sprintwere arguably two of last year's top smartphones, not so
much because of their hardware (which was matched by similar or identical
models on other networks), but for it's ability to tap much faster data speeds.

A lot of the utility of a smartphone is the
ability to browse the web, send emails, and more. In general data speeds
still have a ways to go before attaching large files like pictures to emails
becomes painless and until web browsing reaches desktop-like page load speeds.
The switch to 4G wireless technologies is an important step in that
direction.